1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a micro electrical connector, particularly to a micro electrical connector having fixing means for mounting onto a printed circuit board by SMT (Surface Mount Technology).
2. The Prior Art
SMT has been used in mounting micro electrical connectors onto a printed circuit board (PCB) to meet the smaller and smaller size requirement of the electrical connectors. Some conventional devices have been developed to fix a micro connector onto a PCB before wave soldering procedure of SMT to prevent undesired dislocating of the micro connector on the PCB, which devices can be found in, for example, Taiwan Patent Application No. 79211295, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,627,385, 4,639,066, 4,721,473, 4,842,552, 4,983,704, 4,943,244, 5,024,607, and 5,085,589. These fixing devices, however, provide merely positioning forces enough for wave soldering purpose, rather than fixing forces enough to firmly retain the connector on the PCB for sustaining external forces due to repeated insertion and removal of a mating connector or electrical component. Therefore, a connector using these fixing devices will encounter the problem that their contacts take too much external force while a mating electrical component is inserted into or removed from it. In the long run, the soldering portions of the contacts will be loosened or even detached from the PCB, causing poor transmission of electrical signals or even short circuits. A solution was proposed in Taiwan Patent Application No. 80212589, which solution, however, did not completely overcome the shortcoming above mentioned.
Hence, there is a need for an electrical connector having fixing means that can overcome the above-mentioned shortcoming.